


True North

by WetSammyWinchester



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Deaths Mentioned, M/M, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22392670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WetSammyWinchester/pseuds/WetSammyWinchester
Summary: The English countryside is a warm and quiet respite when Francis returns home. He savors the solitude but makes an exception for James.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 10
Kudos: 31
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5, The Terror Bingo (2019)





	True North

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2020 Chocolate Box Challenge as a gift for lynndyre. So many great prompts for Crozier/Fitzjames so I chose: survival AUs (with my own twist), and to take them back in England with scars, visible and not. I also tied in my own Terror bingo prompt of compass which worked well with these themes.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!

The bluebells hang their heads. The delicate flowers seem to watch as Francis takes his small trowel and digs out dirt in front of them. Careful not to disturb their roots, he buries the crocus bulbs, rough-skinned like onions, grouping them in twos and threes in the holes. Like Francis, the bluebells will need to be patient and wait until August to see them bloom.

Overhead, the summer sun has reached its highest point and he wipes his brow - an unseasonably warm May according to the locals.

“Hello, Captain!” Mrs. Smith’s warble carries over the small garden gate. She leans on the wrought iron and squints to inspect his work. “The new flowers are beautiful. You have a talent,” she says, not for the first time. “I fear for your pale skin burning in the sun on a day like this. Mr. Smith has an extra straw hat. And a pair of gardening gloves. I’ll bring those around tomorrow.”

He stands and brushes the loose dirt off his hands. Mrs. Smith thinks he is industrious as he digs and plants and tends every day but the truth is that watching living things grow soothes his soul. 

She straightens the sash around her ample waist as she stands up. “Anything I can get for you in town, Captain? The fish market will have the latest catch today.” 

He politely declines and waves good-bye as she heads out. It’s become a routine by now, her daily check-in and the short walk to the market. Francis could be annoyed but he’s touched.

He washes his hands carefully under the cold water of the pump before moving inside. There’s a bit of ham left and rye crackers and maybe he’ll indulge in a little mead with lunch. As he sits down at the table with his meager plate, he pulls out the brass compass that is always carried in his coat pocket. He sets it in its usual place to the outside of his knife. Its needle wobbles a bit and Francis waits to eat as it settles to point true north. 

The cottage is one of the few in the county that faces north, subjecting the front door and windows to the cold winter winds when the weather changes. Springtime and then summer come early to this part of the world but not in the north; he is reminded of that every day as he faces out these windows.

Francis strokes the compass’s scarred glass with his index finger face before he turns his attention to his lunch.

“The garden is coming together well, Francis.”

James leans against the open door frame, his face indistinct with the sun shining behind him.

“It is,” Francis replies, taking a bite of ham. “It was left in such disarray by the last tenant.” He knows better than to offer his visitor lunch.

James slides into a chair across the table and Francis admires the trim cut of his blue waistcoat and the gold buttons, like his naval uniform those many years ago. “Mead?” James says, nodding at the mug in Francis’s hand. Concern tugs at the corners of his mouth. “It’s a bit early for that.”

“It’s just mead, James. No need for that sour look,” Francis says and smiles as he raises the mug to his lips. “And it’s never too early.”

“Speaking of timing,” James says. “It’s a little late for crocus in the garden.” 

Francis sets the mug down. “These are special. I’ll be harvesting saffron from them at the end of summer.”

“I never knew you were a gardener. Or a cook.” James’s concern has softened into amusement and Francis considers that a victory.

“Well, not a surprise. Tough to do either on a ship.”

~~~

The cottage feels airless and confining after James’s visit. Francis had planned to fix the wooden bench by the front door but now needs to feel the sun on his face and fresh air in his lungs. 

In the four weeks that he’s lived here, he hasn’t wandered far. Easier to keep busy in the garden and fix broken things in the cottage than to answer the call to explore. It has never left his blood; it simply hibernated under snow and ice.

He tugs on his walking boots and thinks on Mrs. Smith’s comment before pulling a cap down from the hooks by the front door. Before leaving, he eyes the wooden cane that hangs there. His leg twinges up from time to time, a remnant of the cold walk out of the north. He leaves it hanging and walks out into the sun.

A meadow rolls away from his back gate, its long grass verdant and lush, and it crests at the top of the hill with a line of oaks and maples in full leaf. 

Standing here, he is happy with his decision to move to the country. City life was difficult after he returned. Curious and concerned friends and family pressed in close daily as if they were afraid to leave him on his own, that he might disappear once again. Lady Franklin’s smiles and hugs while genuinely given hid her disappointment that the wrong man survived. She was perceptive enough to see his awareness of this and she was kind-hearted enough to recognize his discomfort. Upon their second meeting, she offered the use of a cottage on her family’s property for as long as he wanted. After two months of his brothers’ overbearing concern and their wives’ matchmaking efforts, he took her up on the offer.

The green smell of the grass is as heady as a shot of whiskey he walks. Ice and snow smell like nothing. Here, Francis can smell everything. 

As he climbs the hill, he looks back over his shoulder to see the church steeple in the town below. It takes him ten minutes to reach the crest where he rests in the shade of a large oak. Tension leaves his shoulders as he breathes and sees the rolling fields on the other side, the space that surrounds him with its unfurrowed acres covered in clover.

His boots brush aside the white blooms to reveal the green leaves and brown soil below. Up ahead near an outcropping of dark rocks, he sees a splash of bright red against the white - poppies. They are rare in this area and he wonders how they came to be here. Seeds carried on the wings of birds or the droppings of a passing deer - it doesn’t matter. Francis searches his mind as to whether he can successfully transplant them once they’ve bloomed.

He picks up the pace, heads towards the red, when his boot catches on one of the rocks and he falls forward, rolling down the hill. His legs flail out and another rock catches his foot to twist him upright with a bright flash of pain before he finally lands on his back. His hand instinctively goes to the compass in his pocket and he lets out a small prayer that his leg isn’t broken in this remote field. 

From his spot at the bottom of the hill, he sees a white figure approaching from the side, blurred by the sunlight. James. His dark hair is disheveled as if he had just woken up, perhaps napping at a picnic nearby, and his white linen shirt is undone at the neck but the tail is tucked neatly into his white pants. 

“Are you alright, Francis?”

“How did you find me out here?” Francis says, still breathless from the fall.

“I will always find you,” James replies. “Now stand up. Your ankle is twisted but it’s not bad.” His tone is business-like but his eyes crinkle in concern as Francis pushes himself off the ground with a pained grunt and puts weight on the sprained ankle. 

“There, see—I’m fine.”

James shakes his head with a tired smile. “What are you doing wandering by yourself so far from home, Francis?”

“This isn’t far. Now, King William Island? That was far.” He chuckles and searches for his cap which fell off and finds it a few feet away.

“Not funny. You make it difficult to look after you,” James says, “and I owe you a debt.”

“You owe me nothing, James. But I appreciate it.”

~~~

“No, you must take it. I insist,” James says. He wraps Francis’s fingers around the brass compass. The constant, cutting wind rattles the canvas of the tent and then there is a pause as if God himself was waiting for Francis to respond.

“I can’t,” he says, cupping his other hand around James’s. He has maintained firm composure so far but as James’s eyes drift away, there is a lurch in Francis’s chest. “No, I insist,” Francis says. “You will want it as a memento when we return home once again. Don’t—”

“Please, take a piece of me home with you,” James says softly and then falls unconscious again.

Francis looks at the compass and flips it over to study the cursive inscription - _“to move forward, you only need to take one step”_ \- before tucking it in his pocket.

He turns to Goodsir. “Could you bring me a small dose of the remaining arsenic?”

Goodsir’s eyes grow wider but he nods and heads out of the tent.

Francis brushes James’s hair back from his forehead and takes the quiet moment to lean in close to his ear. “I will always keep it with me, James. Always.”

~~~

As Francis undresses, he lays the compass on his nightstand in its usual place. The black needle quivers again before settling in, forever pointing north towards its owner.

He climbs under the sheets, grateful for a bed instead of a bunk. His ankle still throbs despite the second mug of mead he allowed himself with dinner. The cane that hangs by the front door will be helpful and he can get back at the garden in the morning, tending to the poppy he transplanted earlier. The flower might not make it but he thinks there is a chance.

A shadow approaches the bed. James’s sharp features flick in the candlelight and he looks down at the nightstand before turning to the bed. There is a whisper of a touch on Francis’s forehead and he closes his eyes. Contentment washes over him.

“Maybe you could stay tonight?” Francis says, drifting away. “There’s room for two.”

“Oh Francis,” James says, his soft voice a part of Francis’s drifting consciousness. “I wish I could, with all my heart.” 


End file.
